The tension between CIOs and CFOs within organizations is nothing new. People have been talking about this for years. In the Sarbanes-Oxley era, these tensions seemed to reach their boiling point, and then subside dramatically. But it still exists, apparently.
Some CFOs, according to commentary in InformationWeek, are convinced that IT leaders "don't have a good grasp on risk management, and are still too eager to pursue big-bang projects." And those big ideas can "serve to tank the credibility of CIOs who push them without having done a rigorous ROI analysis."
This is an exaggeration: "Over the past couple of years, as budgets have gotten tighter than two coats of cheap paint, have CIOs had to resort to outlandish claims such as ROI of 2,000 percent in order to get approval to spend any money?" The answer of course is no.
At most firms, this tension is probably manageable. But you do have to feel for CIOs used to the good old days, when they could easily win approval for new projects. Those days are gone, and legitimate ROI estimates certainly will help their case as they pitch new products.
For more:
- here's the article
Related Article:
Should the CIO report to the CFO?
By: Jim Kim for 
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